Stain Your Fingers
by breadandchoc
Summary: Evey Hammond is going to be fine. Sure she is. [EveyDominic] [VEvey]


_Inspired by a fic which I read some time ago which I can't remember the title, but if you can point me in the right direction, much obliged.  
__This is to commemorate several hours of the _dialogue.i.d_. fic which was eaten up by a crashed laptop. Again. This is statistically improbable and I'm sure once I offer the gods another fic, it will all come back.  
__Warnings: blend of movie and GN verse, I guess. Trying out yet another style. Little editing. _

* * *

Evey Hammond is going to be a mother. This is what the newspapers and tabloids and cheap stain-your-fingers prints say.

The father is Dominic Henridge. This is what the newspapers and tabloids and so forth also say. Evey thinks this is probably for the best. She is practically engaged to the young man, after all. And he is practically the nation's Head Watch's surrogate son, and he loves her, and this is why this union would be a splendid political and personal decision.

Union. Decision. She supposes this is what marriage boils down to, after the romanticism.

The papers are already preparing their outlines, Evey knows. Her poor secretary has already been barraged by phone calls shrieking off the hook and her next week is booked with interviews upon meetings upon interviews. Half the articles are to be on England, the other on her.

Dominic is probably experiencing the same thing. He didn't mention anything when he called her, but she could spot the worry in his voice like the dust on an old shelf.

How are you feeling, he'd asked. Shall I come over tonight?

It is always a question with this sweet man. He's polite and sincere, and Evey doesn't think she could bear breaking his heart. She _wants_ to be with this steady, clear-eyed man—the rest of her life sounds less wearying and much more bearable with him around.

Even if V is better in bed than he is.

--Well. She wouldn't know, actually. V had only been once, wild and fast against the wall of some murky dark-alley, in the dead of the night. It had been a mistake and he'd apologized when it was over, his voice muffled by her neck, and then he'd done her again. Slower, that time.

She hadn't apologized. Evey wasn't sorry.

-- She hopes the baby has grey eyes like Dominic, though. She wonders if V is Caucasian.

She hasn't seen V in over a month now. Evey would have convinced herself it was a ghost, but there were bite marks on her shoulder that stayed raw-pink for nearly a week. Her hair had smelled faintly of sulfur and antiseptic soap as well, partly because she refused to wash it. They were rough and needy and desperate to leave marks all the darkness in the world wouldn't hide.

Also, she still has the silk blindfold. That is important.

The baby is going to be Dominic's, though. She will stand tall and her eyes will not waver when she tells the reporters this. She will hold Dominic's hand throughout it all and she knows he will make love to her afterwards, gently, passionate in a tender sort of way, after they've returned to his apartment and he has shut the windows and made sure she is alright and the appropriate lights are off. It is a trait of caution she will grow to love, she is sure.

Because she does love Dominic. There are many types of love and Evey is not fool enough to let this one slip pass her. It is steady current, but not strong enough to drown her in the undertow. It is the type of love that hallmark cards seem to idolize, the metaphorical steady flame at the end of a life fully lived. She trusts him and he understands her and it should be enough.

Except… V is in love with her too. If he is still alive, that is.

He wouldn't hurt Dominic, god knows, but this is it—she doesn't want to hurt _him._ This man who can't bear to be a man. He'd loved her enough to give his dreams to her. Enough to lose his precious control and become the only thing he feared in the alley, a mere mortal vulnerable to possible eyes. Not enough to stay and explain anything, sure, but that was V for you.

Evey knows a great deal of people depend on her. Especially the ones who prefer not to.

So she will protect them all. V, Dominic, Finch, England. And always, always, above all— her child. And oh, herself, but that's hardly important.

This is why she won't tell her doctor that her husband was out of town the week the baby was probably conceived. This is why she will let Dominic tell Finch and his quiet detective eyes this good news about their coming bundle of joy. This is why she won't bother to find V, because even though he knows of her pregnancy, he will never suspect his responsibility.

Love takes many forms. Sometimes artists use lies to tell the truth. In the end, Evey thinks, it all means the same thing.

Maybe one day, when it is raining hard enough and her eyes are squeezed shut tight enough, she will be able to believe this.

Till then, she will love this baby as much as her heart can give. And she will let her husband name her baby, because she owes him this much. And she will do her best to make sure Finch stays around long enough to become a honorary grandfather, even though he will probably have to go outside several times to 'clear his head'. And her child will grow up to be loved and unaware and maybe even normal, and it might be okay.

And Evey will do all this and somewhere along the line, she will be happy.

And if a dark silk strip somehow finds itself wrapped around her wrist on her wedding day…

Well.

Her husband would know her well enough not to ask, and as for her—Evey will soon learn that not all decisions need to be celluloid-perfect to be romantic after all.


End file.
